Tickets are currently on sale for the Sunriver Music Festival’s 35th season. Artistic Director and Conductor George Hanson will lead the world class Festival Orchestra in four classical concerts, a Pops concert and the free family concert. The concert series line up will also include a solo piano recital plus a piano master class, rehearsals and the annual Festival Faire dinner and auction fundraiser. There’s music for everyone from Beatles to Beethoven.
The Pops Concert kicks off August 10 with a tribute to the music of the Beatles in the Classical Mystery Tour Concert. The four musicians in Classical Mystery Tour look and sound just like The Beatles. The show presents more than two dozen Beatles tunes performed exactly as they were originally recorded from early Beatles music through the solo years. The program includes full orchestrations to create a powerful presentation of these memorable Beatles tunes. Symphonies throughout the U.S. are presenting the Classical Mystery Tour concert to sold out audiences.
On August 15, for the first time, the Festival Orchestra will join forces with a chorus of 56 singers from the Central Oregon Mastersingers plus four top-notch soloists to present Beethoven’s renowned Symphony #9.
The Symphony #9 was Beethoven’s final symphony and the first example of a major composer using voices in a symphony, creating a choral symphony. The lyrics were taken from the Ode to Joy, a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785 and revised in 1803 with additions made by Beethoven. Ode to Joy is sung during the final movement by four vocal soloists and the chorus.
Under the leadership of founder and director Clyde Thompson, the Mastersingers have earned recognition as Central Oregon’s premier choir. Begun in 2005, they have over the past seven years presented 18 innovative concerts, exploring choral repertoire from the 12th to the 21st centuries, including masterworks such as Brahms’ Requiem, Handel’s Messiah and Dixit Dominus, and Duruflé’s Requiem.
The Tower Theatre will be filled with music on August 17 with the Schubert Symphony #5 and Beethoven’s Violin Concerto featuring Steven Moeckel, concertmaster of the Phoenix Symphony, concerto soloist and recitalist. Virtuoso violinist Steven Moeckel’s “brilliance, expression, energy and passion” have earned him acclaim throughout Europe, South America and the U.S. As both soloist and concert artist, he has captivated audiences with his musicianship, rich sound and technical prowess.
Three concerts follow at the historic Great Hall at the Sunriver Resort featuring Steinway Artist Elizabeth Joy Roe. On August 19, Elizabeth Joy Roe will perform a solo piano recital that will include Chopin, Beethoven and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Hailed “brilliant” (The New York Times), “an artist to be taken seriously” (The Chicago Tribune), “electrifying” (The Dallas Morning News), “a mature and fascinating interpreter and an artist of intelligence, insight and a genuine grace” (The Southampton Press), Roe was named one of the classical music world’s Six on the Rise: Young Artists to Watch by Symphony Magazine.
Roe will perform again with the Festival Orchestra on August 22. This Closing Night Concert will include the Beethoven Symphony #7 and Roe performing the Mozart Piano Concerto #20. (Symphony #7 is the familiar theme music in the Oscar-winning movie The King’s Speech.)
On August 20, the Festival Orchestra and 16 members of the Central Oregon Mastersingers will present an evening of Baroque and Waltzes in the Great Hall. The concert includes Bach, Brahms and Strauss and the beautiful Vivaldi flute concerto The Goldfinch featuring flutist Adam Kuenzel. In 1990, Kuenzel joined the prestigious Minnesota Orchestra as the principal flute and he has been the Sunriver Music Festival principal flutist since 2003. The Mastersingers will perform a short Bach Cantata and the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes with the orchestra.
541-593-9310, e tickets@sunrivermusic.org, www.sunrivermusic.org.